This just in: Lundqvist signed

The one-year deal is worth $4.25 million, which is higher than previously reported.

All of that goes against the cap, although the Rangers right now are still under, and will likely shed Darius Kasparaitis’ $3 million-plus by the start of the season.

Either way, the Rangers can re-sign Lundqvist to a long-term deal after Jan. 1 that won’t affect their cap situation this year. Count on that happening.

Don’t be surprised if this also expedites things with Sean Avery and Marcel Hossa, although given the girth of Lundqvist’s deal, the team isn’t giving itself that much room to maneuver.

Meanwhile, the full schedule comes out later, but the “Miami Herald is reporting”:http://www.miamiherald.com/sports/hockey/story/166827.html the Rangers will open at home against the Panthers on Oct. 4.

I believe a long term deal is already in place and has been agreed to. Look for it to be announced on 1/2/08! Nice job by ranger mgt. With the Lundquivst being only 25 and new FA’s Gomez and drury being 27 and 30 respectively; {and with all the young talent in the pipeline}dare I say that the Rangers are set up {barring unforseen injuries} to be a force like the Devils were for a decade? We true blue ranger fans deserve something like that! I don’t want to win 1 cup, I want multiple cups in a decade span as the Devils did.

i hope the rangers included a nice insurance package with this too, so that Lundqvist can recoup some of those future earnings if, gods forbid, something happens to him before he signs the long term deal…. I’d hate for him to get blackburned.

Now that Hank is signed for the season, and probably long term, what will Slats do with Al Montoya? Will he trade him before the start of the AHL season? Will he trade him half-way through the season? What will happen?

Souray is an interesting issue. He’s fantastic on the PP. His shot is lethal. However, yes, he has his issues defensively. However, is he worse or equal to what Ozolinsh, Rachunek and even Malik brought to the table defensively? I don’t think he’s on that level, but he’s not that good defensively either.

Something really DOES seem to be up with Souray.
We all but know Kaspar is not part of the plans this year.
With his 3 million scratched out, along with either Mara’s or Malik’s erased, Souray’s signing seems very do-able.
I’m still not convinced Souray here would make sense.

He’s only had ONE really productive season in his career.
Our PP is not designed for the likes of him. But his toughness and size would be a big upgrade on our D.
All in all, I think we should stay away from him and let our defensive prospects have a crack at the team.

I personally think that Souray signing with the rangers is Souray’s camp using the rangers as a ploy to get as much money as possible from anothetr team. Now that the rangers have signed Shanahan and Lundvist you will see Souray sign elsewhere, probably the sharks.

I think Souray will affect our cap situation throughout his contract. Can’t have 4 guys making 1/2 the teams cap (and that excl JJ). Will cost us people like some combo of Prucha, Tyutin, Rozy next yr and similar in following yrs. So my vote is a big no on Souray.

Glad we have the King signed -hopefully get him signed long-term in January.

I totally agree LI JOE, enough with souray, we don’t need him. The rangers need a big physical stay home defensemen who can actually play defense. We don’t need a guy who can’t play defense but has a gtrat shot. The rangers power play is designed around Jagr and shanahan so souray would not fit in on the power play, we don’t need him.

I don’t understand the logic in Sather signing Lundqvist to this 1 year.. 4.25 million contract.

If Sather was really trying to create extra cap room, I would have thought he would have worked out a 2.5-3 million dollar deal with him; or he could have let it go to arbitration and Hank would’ve been awarded somewhere in that neighborhood. (although arbitration is bad for a player’s morale)

If we are already paying him over 4 million dollars THIS year, why couldn’t we have signed him to a long term contract now for say 7 years, 45 million dollars, with him getting 4.5 million dollars this year and an increased amount over that for the next 6 years…about 6.5 million per year subsequently?

In 3-4 years from now, 6 million a year will probably seem like a bargain for an elite player, not to mention a top tier gaoltender-

BlueClue,
The way the cap works, your cap hit over a contract has nothing to do with what the player is making that year, but is the yearly average of the entire contract. For example, Gomez is making about $10 million this year but counts for $7 against the cap because that is the average yearly amount of the contract he signed. So they couldn’t have done what you suggest. You have to assume Lundvist’s long-term deal with be for more than $4.25 million per season so this was the best option with a long-term deal coming later.

I feel that Gomez was the best UFA signing. This kid is coming into his prime with Jagr on his wing. This kid might not be able to “stickhandle in a phonebooth” like Nylander, but I love his speed and vision on the ice.

Drury is a clutch player but to me is not on par with Gomez in the skill department.

Malik: I’m so tired of the “dump Malik” BS. I like having the guy back there and don’t want him going anywhere. He’s in his contract year this coing season and I expect him to have a good season.

Vogs:
On top of what you said, Gomez is much more defensively responsible than Nylander and is a much better face off man. In fact, the Rangers might legitimately have the best group of faceoff centermen in the league with the new additions.

Great to see Lundqvist signed for a good amount of money just in case something happens to him this year. BlueClue – the Rangers could not afford to do as you suggest because that would push Henrik’s cap number for this year (and successive years) over $6 million. Before the cap, the long-term deal would already be done.

For the cap situation, I have it all laid out in the URL I included – just click on my name above^. Much of the information is from NHL Numbers because I just started the tally this past season, but they haven’t been able to update all of the FAs yet, I don’t believe, so that I did myself. The total cap number I have _does not_ include Kasper’s salary, and it _does_ include Avery’s and Hossa’s contract from _last season_, so my cap number will go up by the difference between last season’s and next season’s salaries. Where you see “?”s for salaries, it’s because I don’t know how the contract is broken down, but the cap hit is correct. I have seen other sources round Gomez’s number more, but I divided it equally. If you don’t wanna click over to the website, my calculated *cap number* right now is *$48,434,143*, mind you, using Avery and Hossa from last season. The actual salary for next season is much higher, at $54,485,000. And this is if they don’t call up anybody else to start the season, so the numbers don’t include Staal either.

Going back to the last blog entryÃ¢â‚¬Â¦
Karen mentioned in her post that, per NY Post, Hossa would be getting $1.2 million!?! There’s no way his salary is doubling. If it does, he is a gonner for sure. Net of it, with the cap and roster situations, looks like Hossa is gone to me, unless they stupidly trade Prucha.

Great quotation from Shanny about the situation right now; it pretty much sums up how most people here, aside from the negative ones, are feeling, and it should shut those negative voices up. I’m looking at you Bonfire. “You don’t win the Cup in July….This is just the first step in what you do in the offseason to give yourself a chance. But it’s a good feeling when you step on the ice at training camp knowing that you’re one of those seven or eight teams that are legitimate contenders to win the Stanley Cup.”
I am disappointed to see Shanahan, in effect, getting a raise which, frankly, he didn’t deserve after a year during which he had a concussion and his numbers consequently declined. He probably got more money, however, because this _will_ be his last season playing in the NHL.

UKRanger – for the last time (hopefully), Kasper is not being bought out! That would give the Rangers an unnecessary cap hit that could hamstring them.

Its been a good 2 days….Shanny and Hank back…Now hopefully tomorrow or maybe even today…We get Avery locked up….Then were pretty much done for the off season…Unless were looking to get Souray and dump Malik or Mara…

No, you need to look at it a little differently, with these adjustments:

Right now, with Kasparaitus’ salary already not counted, Shanny’s bonus not counted(it will not count until 2008-09), and Callahan, Staal and Girardi added into the numbers at nhlnumbers.com, the Rangers have $2.7 million left with which to sign Avery and Hossa. Once they do sign those two players, they’ll have 8 defensemen, 13 forwards and 2 goalies for the 23 man roster. Should they send Staal to Hartford, he’d be replaced by someone like Dawes who makes about 300K less, which would leave them with $3 million for Avery and Hossa.

Bottom line: There is very little if any breathing room. If I had to guess I’d say it’s very likely – if Hank did in fact sign for $4.25 million – that they’ll be unloading Malik. And if they do that, then NOT signing Hank long term for $5 million/year if that was on the table was stupid because once Malik is gone that 750K more to Hank would have made little difference. My guess would be that Hank can ultimately get $7 million or more long term…

True about what Shanny said. What worries me (and I’m not being negative) is what Jagr said about how things look on paper and that being very different than on the ice.

I know he’s sour about Nylander leaving but I would hope he would have the same thoughts as Shanny and would be excited about this coming season and feeling like the Rangers have a real shot. I hope it’s just sour grapes and he changes his tune come Sept-Oct.

Jaromir Jagr was asked by hokej.cz about new Ranger centers Scott Gomez and Chris Drury, specifically, which would be a better fit for him on his line. “I don’t know, weÃ¢â‚¬â„¢ll see,” he said. “It looks good on paper but the reality on the ice is usually different. We may not click. And that would be a big problem.” Jagr is as surprised as anyone, including Ranger management, that the team was able to sign both. “They were trying to sign as many centers as possible,” he said. “To get at least one if the other one didn’t [sign]. In the end, they got both and fit under the cap.”

If he doesn’t seem as enthusiastic as he should be about the splashy signings, it is because he remains disappointed about Michael Nylander leaving to sign with the Capitals. “It sure is a big loss for us,” he said. “But this will become normal under the new NHL system. Players will test the market and clubs will have no choice. They have to sign other players.” On the other hand, Jagr understands why Nylander had to leave. He believes that his former centerman was unable to communicate his needs to the Rangers on time and management couldn’t wait any longer. For fear, Jagr explained, that “we could suddenly end up with no centerman — that would be, let’s say, the end of the season.”

Jaromir Jagr was asked by hokej.cz about new Ranger centers Scott Gomez and Chris Drury, specifically, which would be a better fit for him on his line. “I don’t know, weÃ¢â‚¬â„¢ll see,” he said. “It looks good on paper but the reality on the ice is usually different. We may not click. And that would be a big problem.”

Well, without counting Staal’s $855,000 cap number, the total team cap is at $47,234,143 by my count, leaving about $3.05 million to sign Avery and Hossa, which is definitely doable. (I forgot to include Strudwick in the number I menitoned in my last message! So those numbers should be $500K higher.) Somehow I think Sather doesn’t want Staal on the NHL roster this season, so if he makes no trades, he could hide behind the fact that Staal won’t fit on the roster because of the cap. Even if he does trade a defenseman, PÃƒÂ¶ck would likely take that spot, and then Sather can say that he wants Shanny’s bonus number to count this year instead of next. But he would just be a weasel to keep Staal in the minors for that reason.

Peter, I don’t think there was any truth to a rumor that Henrik would sign long-term for $5 million per year. He is much better than DP, who is making $4,500,000 a year. I just looked at NHL Numbers and laughed because of the note, “Contract ends 20/21.”

In addition, if Montoya plays instead of Valiquette, which he should be able to, maybe after a couple weeks more tuning in the AHL, our cap goes up by $350,000. So there’s definitely got to be a trade for Staal, or any other rookie, to make the team.

I want to address the comment by BRANDON, above: “This is just the first thing you do in the offseason to give yourself a chance.”

And just what are the Rangers chances, as perceived by Las Vegas, as of this minute? Here are the posted odds against winning the 2008 Stanley Cup at http://www.donbest.com, taken from the Mirage Sports Book, just minutes ago…..

ANA 5-1

OTT 6-1

DET 8-1

BUF 10-1

NYR 10-1

S JOSE 11-1

PIT 12-1

Discounting for the 30 points taken out of the pool, representing the book’s profit margin, the Rangers currently, and considering the Shanahan and Lundqvist re-signings, are given a 7% chance of winning the Stanley Cup, next June, the equivalent of natural 13-1 odds against, discounting the house rake. In other words, the world outside Ranger fandom and blogdom, this morning, gives this team no better than one chance in 14 of winning it all, next time around. And we are talking SMART MONEY here. SPORTS BOOKS, make a handsome living, as we know, offering wagering propositons which are in line with REALITY, discounting for their built-in profit margin. This, in fact, is how Las Vegas is able to develop BILLION DOLLAR hotel-casino properties. They are not giving away the store.

My thinking is that this team, had it chosen to dump the Straka’s and Shanahan’s of the world this off-season and commit to the wholesale, immediate installing of a group of highly-talented kids, would, this time next year, be about double percentage chance of winning the Stanley Cup, by comparison with where they are right now, and in two years it would be rational to project this team as co-favorite with Pittsburgh, each with approximately a 20 % chance of winning it all.

Regrettably, this team has chosen the path of a short-sighted, long-shot approach to achieving the ultimate glory, rather than methodically and patiently putting the pieces in place at this time to take a REAL run at winning the Stanley Cup in the not too distant future. This organization is going to have one hell of a difficult time bypassing Pittsburgh, which already has the pieces in place to win it all in the next two years, long before anyone in New York will be drinking champagne in the month of June.

This smells like Sather has a verbal (or maybe even a written) contract with Henrik that he won’t send to Central Registry until 1/2/08. Something in the neighborhood of 7 million a year. Actually, I could see it being higher. The team is paying Gomer and Drury 7 each, Henrik is more important than each of them, so I could see the contract being as high as 8 mil a year.

Is he unhappy? come on now… let’s get serious here. Jagr plays in NYC, he has either Drury or Gomez as his centerman, he has Shanahan and Prucha on another line plus Straka, Rozival and Malik as his teammates.

Is Jagr unhappy? He makes $10 million per season.

It took me all of 1 week to get over losing Michael Nylander. This is a professional sports team, Jagr is the captain of the New York Rangers, he has two of the top centers in the league to play hockey with, both of which have won and been intricate parts of Stanley Cup teams.

I don’t doubt that Nylander and Jagr had chemistry on the ice. They had it in Washington and they had it here in NYC. I’m sure Jagr will miss his playmaking centerman, but I expect that to remedy itself by the end of training camp. Gomez played next to Elias his entire career, I’m sure he’ll be able to get Jagr the puck in the right position.

Oh, Bonfire, you make me want to scream, which I can’t do right now because I’m at work. That is such a great argument you have, bringing up sports books and odds. It has nothing to do with what Shanahan said. He said it’s the first step, so he’s not saying the Rangers are favorites either. If we relied on those odds, why bother even playing the season; we should probably award the Cup to Anaheim right now. I’m sure in the past, the Rangers had better odds to win the Cup because of their great “paper” team, but they didn’t even make the playoffs for seven seasons. The Ducks were probably low on the list too because of their relative youth, but their goaltender stole the show often, which the Rangers’ goalie can do, as well. If you don’t think the Rangers are going to win, bet on the Ducks instead.

Jagr is definitely unhappy, because the chemistry between him and Nylander took a ton of hours of communicating what they want to do and practicing, he will have to do it all over again, that is why I think Straka will be his center and either Drury or Avery play the LW and take the faceoffs for Straka.

Also, BRANDON, why are you trading the valuable time of your life working for money in an office, for the benefit of some boss who looks at you like you are a dung pile?

You have no entrepreneurial spirit? No drive to succeed? No gumption to get out in the real world jungle and meet it head on, on your own terms?

Nothing could be sadder, more pathetic, or more dead-end than that, here in America, the greatest land of opportunity in the world. This is your wake-up call, Sport. Forget the Rangers, you have much sowing to do in the garden of your own life. THEN, when you have taken care of business, you can divert your attention to leisure-time interests and pursuits.

Jagr is always a big baby whenever he has to do things he’s not used to. His entire attitude on Nylander is very reminiscent of the entire situation with him sitting out shootouts up until the final few months of the season.

He’s the type of player with a very old school mentality in the sense that he doesn’t like change. The fact is, Jagr just needs somebody to pass him the puck and he can do the rest. Adding Gomez to his line likely will result in more assists for Jagr and more goals for Gomez.

Drury is good on faceoofs, but played as a winger for a large part of his career, even in Buffalo. I don’t really think there will be much chemistry between Gomez/Drury and Jagr.

Jagr not only needs someone to pass him, he needs someone who understands what he wants, someone who has great puck possession and who can create room for him by those slight interferences than Nylander always did by getting in the way of a defender to let Jagr have more room with the puck. Jagr knows that there is nobody else like Nylander to be able to do these things as good and he knows the time is ticking on him and that he will not have enough time to teach Gomez or Drury all these tricks so obviously he is not happy and will end up playing with Straka who understands already what Jagr wants.

What?! Just because Jagr had good chemistry with Nylander doesn’t mean he’s irreplaceable. You make it sound like they were together for all of their careers…they didn’t even know each other prior to Jagr coming to the Rangers.

Jagr will have all of training camp and pre-season to work on his chemistry with Gomez or Drury. The bottom line is that Jagr is a professional and one of the greatest hockey players of all time. Changing one player on his line shouldn’t have any affect on his production. If it does, then he might as well retire because nobody stays with their same linemates their entire career.

Nylander was not slow but neither are Drury and Gomez. Obviously Jagr being unhappy is never good (as seen in Washington). “no more posse for pussy” makes it sound like Drury and Gomez have never played hockey before, they are both world class cup winning centers (something Nylander has never done).

Time will tell how he works out at center but it should be noted that Jagr did well playing with Ron Francis back in the day and Drury (and even Gomez) play a closer style to Francis than Nylander.

As for Bonfire I would really like to see historical odds for the last several cup winners. I would guarantee you that they were not given better than 10-1 odds (the Hurricanes, Tampa? Come on…). I would guess these odds makers you brag about so much had the Hurricanes in that 15-20% range this year (coming off cup win) and they failed to make the playoffs.

If you go by the numbers though the Rangers are being given the 4th best chance in the league, not too shaby. In a league with 30 teams, 10/1 isnt bad. Consider that only 3 football teams have odds of 10/1 and better: Patriots (8/5), Chargers (5/1), and Colts (7/1). Thats a damn good group to be in.

PS: “I cannot think of ANYTHING lesser significant than the pre-season P.R. pablum dished-out by some player who just bluffed a hand to win his last big score contract” – That is about the dumbest thing I read (even excluding your use of “lesser significant”). He said that after he New York is only place he wanted to play and he didnt care how much money they offered him.

First of all, Fatuous Freddie, this is a 30-team league, so it’s not like a horse race with 6-12 entries going forward, and with a favorite going off in the 2-1 odds range. You obviously don’t know squat about odds, about Las Vegas (you are not alone, there), or about the accurate and consistent correlation of odds (with their percentage chance conversion) with the actual chances of any given team in any sport for having success. In fact, a team favored at 5-1 in a 30-team league is an extremely strong choice.

You want to take public statements by athletes as “gospel,” and “sincere,” and meaningful, go right ahead. I have a sandbox I will let you play in for just $10,000 dollars per square inch. I mean, I am embarrassed for you, you are so gullible, but, then, you have to live with the consequences of your lack of life experience, and lack of understanding of human nature, and default concept of how the business world operates, so YOU pay your dues, learn the hard way from your mistakes, and deal with it, and maybe one day, 10 years down the road, start to benefit from the wisdom it contains.

You obviously overlooked that I discounted the Rangers REAL odds from 10-1 to 13-1 by adjusting for the 30 points bookmaker rake over a round book of 100 points. The Rangers are being offered to the public, currently, at 10-1 odds, but the books have calculated their chances, consistent with the current flow of money and their own handicapping and computerized evaluation, at 13-1, or one chance in 14. The books, of course, NEVER give a bettor fair value odds, based upon the flow of money. They always depress their public odds offerings to give themselves the “juice” to pay their bills and screw around with hot chicks on a yacht off Burmuda, or wherever bookies go to have their fun.

So you are impressed with the Rangers having, currently, one chance in 14 of achieving the ultimate glory. I am not. 93 failures in 100 tries is not the percentage chance I want to have going against me, especially when the odds offering on success is 10-1, a projected loss of 21.43 per cent ROI, over the long haul. You think a wagering proposition with a 21+ per cent edge to the house is something to grab on to. It is exactly because there are millions of SUCKERS (how else can one say it) that the powerful and well-connected entities in this world, continue to expand their scope and influence, while the “rope-a-dopes” (here’s looking at you, kid) of the world continue to fall further behind.

Sorry if this is a bit over your head, where your comprehension is concerned. I keep forgetting I am dealing with an intellectual pygmy, as I compose this. First graders are really not up to learning calculus, I must remind myself.

Well Robby I am going to ignore your personnal attacks because insulting people on blog comments while making up cute little nicknames is quite frankly stupid. But as you listed wikipedia information about odds you forgot to mention address several things I said. Now I am going by the numbers you listed in your first post b/c like many people who manipulate statistics to prove points you only gave a small sample. Your numbers are as follows:

ANA 5-1
OTT 6-1
DET 8-1
NYR 10-1
BUF 10-1
S JOSE 11-1
PIT 12-1

Now I sinces you gave the rangers a 30% upward adjustment I will do the same for everyone else (comparing apples to oranges doesnt work). These are rounded and also in percent form:

Now once you look at it that way things dont look so bad, the defending Stanley Cup champs who had a good offseason are only being given a 13% chances! That means 87 out of 100 times they are going to lose. Now are you seeing how easy it is to make things seem much more severe than they are.

And then as I stated before you stop and say “Hey!”, these odds makers are only giving 3 teams a better chance to win than the Rangers. And of the top 5 teams 4 were in their respective conference finals, odds makers do have a tendency to give last years top teams a better chance.

But before a single game has been played the Rangers are considered the 4th best team in the league. I am fine with that, especially since the last couple Stanley Cup champs definitely were not. So when (and if) you reply Robby, since you do have all the numbers what were Carolina, Tampa and the Anaheim’s preseason odds the years they won the cup with a list of odds for all teams ahead of them. And link your source on that one. Thanks, pal.

Oh and I dont even know what Shanny said I just know that why would someone come back with a smaller salary then he could have gotten on the open market…Those ACTIONS say that he thinks this team has a chance to win a cup and the odds he put on a team mean alot more than anyone in Vegas.

“Dumb” is not a personal attack – it’s just standard lexicon jargon, around here. Right.

Re: “The Rangers are considered the fourth best team in the league.” Actually tied for fourth with Buffalo. which is listed at the same pre-season odds, right now. Of course the odds are revised upwards or downwards on all teams as the season progresses to the point when the odds menu is taken down. A team opening at 10-1 can go to 30, or over-achieve and drop to 5-1, or thereabouts. Information is King, and it is updated and factored into the mix, daily, even hourly, in Las Vegas.

Shanahan has an INCENTIVES and BONUS arrangement which could increase his income here, markedly. Again, we apparently are going to disagree over the PRIMARY motivation these players and their agents bring to the table – and yes, ownership has the same primary motivation – to make as much money for as little investment, as possible. It’s called ROI and everyone is impressed when the ROI is high, not low or negative.

You make it sound like Shanahan wants to play here for LESS money, for a better chance at winning the Cup. How quaint. How about Shanahan and all the rest of these clowns want to play for the most money they can make, here or in Siberia, results on the season be damned, and he already has multiple Cups and his name engraved, accordingly. Shanahan is NOT an altruistic charity, he is a businessman first, who happens to be an athlete, second. Sports is just the “vehicle,” as the saying goes. If these players were altruistic and idealistic they would not have “agents” – another word for paid, professional extortionist and financial mugger.

Re “I only give a small sample,” Christ, you wanted me to run down all 30 NHL teams, including the bottom-feeders? Are you suggesting I am hiding something by throwing the wost teams in the league out of the mix? Get real. We were addressing CONTENDING teams, not putting on a seminar devoted to a round book computational exercise.

Let me start by saying that saying that is the “dumbest” statement I have read is far different than saying “I mean, I am embarrassed for you, you are so gullible, but, then, you have to live with the consequences of your lack of life experience, and lack of understanding of human nature, and default concept of how the business world operates, so YOU pay your dues, learn the hard way from your mistakes, and deal with it, and maybe one day, 10 years down the road, start to benefit from the wisdom it contains.” It is very common for a person to feel certain statements are “dumb” without feeling the person that said them are “dumb”. What makes it even more important that it was regarding something said about the topic (read: NY Rangers). You on the other hand just attacked me on a lot of things you know nothing about. But forget about that whole thing, my feelings dont get hurt by comments on the internet. Lets stay on topic Robby.

While it is impossible to determine someone’s true motivation I agree that most athletes are driven primarily by money. With that said how is Shanahan trying to make more money by saying A) I want to retire as a Ranger and B) I will take anything that will help the team. I take this quote from the NY Post:

“I’m going to play next year and it is my intention to play for the Rangers…I’ve never negotiated in the papers. But there aren’t going to be any silly games. It’s not a traditional negotiation where I’m looking for leverage, let’s put it that way. My feeling is that pretty much anything they propose that will help the Rangers be better, I’ll be all ears.”

Somehow that does not sound like he was “bluffing a hand to win his last big score contract.”

But all of the Shanahan (note spelling) stuff aside you made your points via gambling statistics yet you have backed off. You made two arguments in your last post: the Rangers are tied for 4th not in sole possesion (you are right there, touche) and you managed to misinterpret something I said (again).

I did not mean you should give all teams numbers I was simply commenting on how easy it is for someone to show several numbers and force a conclusion upon his audience. Had you wanted to show a complete range you could have given odds for worst teams to show how big of a discrepancy there is between best and worst. I am guessing that would have made Rangers look alot better though so you figured lets not do that.

For those with knowledge of debating they could point out how you nitpicked small points yet ignored the main argument (ie “tied for 4th” and attacking my side thought paragraph about Shanahan). This is a tactic to make it appear as if you still have fight but in actuality you dont see how you can put down my main points. So I can see you dont have much argument left, you have even stopped calling people names.

I am still waiting on those odds for last couple of Cup champs but I know you arent going to post them. So, I leave you with this advice: if your going to talk a big game and insult people PLEASE back it up…

I am not going to “invent” odds, or any other information I cannot research and have access to. I don’t bet NHL “futures.” We can agree the odds on recent long-shot Stanley Cup winners opened high and were significantly adjusted downward as these recent seasons progressed. This does NOT abet the Rangers chances for success in 2008, if that is the inference. “Carolina and TB won it as long shots, and so can the Rangers” if that is the mantra, misses the mark, badly. About 3/4ths of the teams in the league fall into the longshot category. If one of 22 longshot teams emerges to win it all, it does not make anyone prescient or a sage to have lumped them all together the previous July – unless you tell us during training camp which longshot team will catch lightning in a bottle, and you nail it.

After the fact “expertise” is packaged and sold, all the time. In fact NO ONE knows before the fact, which direction this Ranger team will take, as the next season progresses. If I had not already seen the current L.V. line, which has to influence one’s thinking, upon exposure to it, my best guess is that I would have handicapped this Ranger team, on this date, at 15-1 natural odds, to win it all. 10-1 seems low, given ability questions on D, and a serious lack of balance and potency as regards scoring, up front. Plus will Jagr rebound, and can Straka and Shanahan even make it through the season (?) are basic questions no one can answer, at this time. And Staal hasn’t even made the team, yet, and given Sather’s reluctance to plug-in kids, other than in desperation injury situations, 15-1 is the best I can project, at this time.

Whether it drops to 5-1 and they win it all, or it drifts out to 30-1 and they finish behind Boston and other dregs teams to miss The Dance, matters not, where one’s credibility is concerned. Being a “fan” of a team, and predicting the team will do well, because key players “want to play here,” has nothing to do with what puts a team over the top. But go ahead and believe that the players’ “dedication,” along with your blind faith, and its juxtaposition with destiny will all come together, culminating in the desired result, all you wish. On the other hand, this could become a long and disappointing season. Allow for the reality of disappointment, too, is my best suggestion, at this time.

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